In society the only feelings we obey are those which win our respect, and the men to whom we listen, and whom we honour, are those who inspire respect. This is the only criterion which enables us to gauge correctly the men and things to whom we owe, if not absolute obedience, at least attention and deference. Old men are the nation's conscience, and it is a conscience at times severe, morose, tiresome, obstinate, over-scrupulous, dictatorial, and it repeats for ever the same old saws; in other words a conscience; but conscience it is. The comparison might be carried further with results that would be advantageous as well as curious. We degrade and finally vitiate our conscience if we do not respect its behests. Conscience then itself becomes small and timid and humble, shamefaced, and at length a mere whisper. Absolutely silent it can never be made. It becomes sophisticated, it begins to employ the language of passion, not of the vilest passions of our nature, but still the voice of passion; it ceases to use the categoric imperative and tries to be persuasive. It no longer raises the finger of command, but it seeks to cajole with caressing hand. Then it falls still lower, it affects indifference and scepticism and it puts on the air of the trifler in order to insinuate a word of wisdom into the seductive talk that is heard around it, and it holds language somewhat as follows: "Probably everything has its good points and there is something to be said for both vice and virtue, crime and honesty, sin and innocence, rudeness and politeness, licence and purity. These are all simply different forms of an activity which cannot be wholly wrong in any of its manifestations; and it is precisely because every one of these has its value that there may be nothing to lose in being honest, nay, perhaps something to gain." Nevertheless, a nation that does not respect its old men changes their nature and despoils them of their beauty and integrity. How true is Montesquieu's saying that the respect paid them by the young helps old men to respect themselves! Old men who are not respected take no interest in their natural duties; they cease to advise, or else they only venture to advise indirectly, as though they were apologising for their wisdom, or they affect a laxity of morals to enable them to insinuate a surreptitious dose of worldly wisdom;--and worst of all in view of the insignificant part assigned to them in society, old men will nowadays decline to be old. CHAPTER IX. MANNERS.